Category

Outsourcing

Imagine starting your business and selling it for millions in less than two years. It’s every entrepreneur’s dream, but it was reality for three engineering buddies, Javier, Kevin, and JJ. Just like you, they had a vision, an idea that would make life easier for people. If they could develop it, scale it quickly, then they would be making good (and easy money).

They got to work, just like you have, crafted a plan to design the mobile email application, and soon they were living the small business dream. They ran into snags with product design, technical bugs, some of the very same hurdles you may have had to overcome. This technically complex and challenging vision looked like it might slow them down.

And, the way most startups are structured, it would have.

But it didn’t.

When most would have scrapped the idea for something a bit more profitable, they went back to the drawing board and unearth an innovative strategy that paid off big!

Little did they know, their mobile email app would become the best example of how you can work less and make more, in no time.

They had an unconventional idea that helped them make millions in a matter of months. Their business idea wasn’t rare and in fact had been done before. But, they were able to leverage the secrets you’ll discover in this blog to scale their business from an idea to catch the attention of leading technology companies like Microsoft.

In a few minutes you’ll get access to some of the same business tools that the founders of Acompli tapped into, to realize amazing growth.

Most entrepreneurs struggle with balancing how to invest their money and time to get the best return. You may be experiencing the financial and time pinch. You may have considered giving up. You may even have wrecked your brain to figure out how to grow your business without sacrificing even more.

If you’re like most, you have a great idea. You have the dedication to grow that idea, but you may be short on resources. The more you work, the more work there is to do. And, before you know it you’re stuck on a hamster wheel somewhere in between getting your idea off of the ground and positioning it in front of your target customer.

And, that’s where your profits and productivity stall.

You’re not alone. The founders who made millions in less than two years, were where you are today. But, they found a better way – a way that saved them tons of time and got them the industry recognition they needed to get an amazing ROI.

Settle into a comfortable spot and take the next 3 minutes to read this blog. As you read it, you will discover ten addictive tools that will help you free up your time, work less and make your business profitable and instantly scalable.

You’ll also see what came of Acompli.

Tools 1 & 2: Fiverr & UpWork – Get Others to Do Your Work for You

If you take an inventory of all the business-related tasks you do everyday. How many of them can be done by someone else?

There are some tasks that only YOU can do. But, there are a host of other tasks that you can get someone else to do, on their time, and for cheap. Your time is valuable and should be left to building a business strategy, not doing data entry or trying to learn how to code.

Don’t fall into the mental trap that “no one can do it as good as I can”. If you let your inner control freak take over, you’ll stay on the hamster wheel. Break the mindset now, get off the hamster wheel, and kick back as your well-oiled freelance machine does the work for you.

The founders of Acompli outsourced from day one, giving them the time they needed to develop their app to beat the competition. If they had spent their time doing administrative tasks that took them away from coding, you wouldn’t be reading about their amazing growth.

Here are just a few areas you can outsource for pennies on the dollar and still get high-quality output:

Graphic Design

Data Entry

Website Development

Keyword Research

Content Creation (blogging, white papers, lead magnets, emails)

Social Media Management

Find those time drains in your day, and let them go. Focus your attention and efforts on perfecting your business idea and getting it customer-ready.

Maybe you’re at the point where you’re ready to try something new. Or, maybe you’ve been there for some time now. Either way, we have a set of tools that can help you realize a better and more efficient way to get the business results you deserve. (In just a minute I’ll give you the inside tip into 200 other tools you can use to achieve incredible growth.)

When you accept the fact that you can learn from others who have had great success – you’ll take the stress off of yourself from having to reinvent the wheel.

Find what has already worked for companies and replicate it for your business.

That’s the premise behind this amazing tool. Fortune 100 companies hire expensive sales and marketing experts to craft email marketing campaigns. They A/B test them, sink millions of dollars to figure out what wording works and what customers ignore. You could repeat this yourself and spend thousands of dollars – but, do you really have the money to do this?

Customer outreach can be challenging even for Fortune 100 companies.

If you’re like most businesses, every dollar has to be stretched. So, investing money on emails is not an option.

The founders of Acompli studied what had been done before and the outcomes of those businesses. They found that most failed when they invested in areas that they could instead poach ideas from. Stepping outside of the box is what you need to get out of the everyday rat race entrepreneurs get stuck in and think on a bigger level.

Leveraging technology to your advantage is the best way to scale your business.

The problem is we often don’t realize that doing this is an option – or even legal.

Using Really Good Emails you can see what other companies are using. Check out their layouts, graphics, text, and their success rates. Even better, outsource email creation to a freelancer and have them scour the site for great examples. Learn from them, recreate them, and reap the benefits of someone else’s hard work (and money).

On this blog we publish tools you can use, in categories, so you can see exactly what tools are available to solve your business needs. When new ones come out, we review them, test them, and send them your way to tap into even more business success.

To have real business success you have to outdo your competition. Have better keywords, a killer website, or above anything else, drive MORE traffic. If you’re a small fish in a big sea of businesses, look at what the big fish are doing.

In the past, unless you had insider access, it would be impossible to know the ins and outs of your competitors business and marketing strategy.

With new online tools like Spyfu, you can take cyber stalking to a whole new level to get you higher profits in less time.

See what keywords your competition is using, what Google Adwords their running, and what platforms they’re on to drive their traffic. Your product or service is worth buying, so why not find the information you need to position it for customers to see?

Leveraging cheap, competitive analysis technology like LongTail Pro is just the secret weapon you need to get one foot off of the hamster wheel and have more time (and money) to focus on scaling your business quickly.

They use outdated marketing to get new customers and end up wasting money with no results. If you want to be a successful business in the 21st century, then you MUST find what works for today’s audience. You also have to be nimble enough to ditch what’s not working and switch to what will.

If you invested thousands in social media and it isn’t getting you the leads you need, don’t continue sinking costs into a dying process. Be creative, think outside the box – this may be the only way for you to get off the hamster wheel.

If you’re not using videos to sell your business, you’re losing out on sales.

Vidyard and Promo give you unprecedented access to making videos that will SELL your product or service.

Here’s why businesses that leverage videos, and leverage them well are winning BIG with today’s customers.

4x as many customers would rather watch a video about your product than to read about it.

25% of new customers will lose interest in your business if you don’t have a video.

4 in 5 customers say they look for a video showing how your product or service works

Back to Acompli…

They did something a bit unusual in terms of marketing – and it paid off big time for them. Keep reading and you’ll soon discover why they are the best example of why you have to think outside of the box to rack in amazing profits.

Tools 9 & 10: LuckyOrange & Mouseflow – Move “Browsers” to Buyers

Even if you have a killer website, your work isn’t done. In fact, it has just started. With an online presence, more and more customers will be coming to your site. If you don’t have a website or don’t have one that is up to par, get it there quickly – or lose sales.

When customers come to your site, you should know where they enter, what they do, and how to convert them into buyers.

Most businesses are too passive when it comes to driving sales.

Don’t be satisfied with someone clicking off of your page. Try to find out why, what they were looking at when they clicked off, and how you can amp up your content to compel them to checkout, visit your store, or give you a call.

Routinely take a deep dive into your website analytics and ask yourself:

What pages drive the most traffic?

How many customers convert versus just browse my site?

Does my content draw the customer in and make them WANT to buy?

Are my product or service descriptions clear and accurate?

Am I using video effectively to pitch my business?

If you have a concern with any of these questions, fix it, or recruit talented and affordable help to get your website in better shape.

Your website is a professional reflection of your business, so take it seriously.

Don’t be afraid to refresh your content, swap out text and see if it resonates better with your target market. This is where some inside intelligence can be helpful to see what your competitors are doing on their page and how their content is crafted. Remember, why waste your time and money if you can replicate what has already been proven to work!

Now back to Acompli and their unorthodox decision…

Their email app wasn’t groundbreaking, so they knew they had to code the hell out of it to get it to stand apart from what was already available.

Most businesses would have simultaneously invested in marketing and product development. But, they didn’t. Instead they freelanced and hired a talented team of engineers. They did hire a few marketing and sales people, but their main focus was on coming up with innovative ways to get the coding perfect and the email app market ready.

And, they’re unusual decision paid off – and paid off big. Not only were they acquired, but Microsoft bought their email app for $200 million. So from business idea to acquisition in exactly 18 months. All because they chose to leverage their tools to get the best engineers on the project to create an irresistible email app that Microsoft had to have.

You can get similar benefits by rethinking how you’re doing things. By stepping back and being willing to let go a bit and use these business tools you can achieve measurable growth, with minimal effort or money. Your first step is to get our Outsourcing Blueprint worksheet and video to see where you can leverage tech and freelancers to free up your business.

Fiverr is the holy grail of outsourcing sites! Whether you need a new brochure designed, a killer website, or Facebook likes – fiverr has it all! Top talent from across the globe have accounts on fiverr, ready and willing to provide amazing work at a fraction of the cost.

For $5 you have access to top quality services in media, graphic design, marketing, IT services, writing, and much more. The $5 offerings are called “gigs” and each vendor specifies what you’ll get for $5. For example, $5 may score you a custom logo, or 100 likes on your business’ Facebook page.

What’s the mobile story?

Their mobile app is available for free download in the Apple App Store or through GooglePlay. Now, you can snag great deals on much needed work on the go!

How much?

1 gig = $5.00. Larger work orders or custom requests will cost more, but the price is set by the vendor.

As with any outsourcing site, due diligence goes a long way! Fiverr has an awesome customer service team should an issue arise. Reading through client reviews and checking out their online portfolio are great ways to make your $5 gig a success.

If you can’t do it, don’t have the time to do it, or just want to see what freelance talent is available, then Fiverr is your go-to! Share your experiences with Fiverr, when you try it out, by commenting on this blog.

Whether you are a one-man band or have a business partner, there may come that point in your business’s life where you’ll consider bringing on additional part or full-time team members. Then there are the sorts of team members that are purely outsourced but still play a vital role in the success of your business.

In today’s post we take a look at some of the lessons we’ve learned from building teams – internal and external – and how you can avoid some of the mistakes many business owners make when building their team.

When to Hire a New Full or Part-timer

Many small business owners begin to consider hiring a new employee when they get so busy they don’t have enough time in their day to do the things they need. Just because you are really busy – most entrepreneurs are – doesn’t mean this merits the hiring and training of a new employee.

However, if you are turning down work because you can’t handle it or you know you could get more clients if your new employee helped with some of the smaller stuff then you probably have some indication that a new hire is a good idea. This does of course imply that you want to grow your business. You’ll also have to weigh the potential income you’ll make with the new hire versus how much you’ll need to pay your new employee.

Lessons Learned from Outsourcing

Two of the most common issues entrepreneurs have when building an external team are reliability and communication. It’s funny how cost is one of the least common issues as sometimes the case with outsourcing, and especially through websites like www.elance.com, www.odesk.com or www.fiverr.com, is you get what you pay for.

The expectation of a $5 piece of content, the $300 website or instant response to your email for that logo design you needed three days ago should be on par with where you are finding your outsource team. One of the primary reasons small business owners outsource is to save money but if delays or incomplete projects hinder business growth they can sometimes outweigh the cost savings.

When outsourcing here in the US or overseas, do your due diligence and vet your external team before trusting them for solid work. Take a look at their portfolio, ask them about their turn-around times, view their reviews or talk to their previous clients if possible to get a better understanding of what you can expect from them. Manage your outsourced team as you would an internal team in your office by touching base with them every day, monitoring their progress and clearly communicating expectations from day one.

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entreholic was created with the mission to simplify and demystify marketing, making it easier and more accessible to businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our staff of Entreholics are addicted to discipline, creativity, and constant learning...